Terror and Greatness: Ivan and Peter as Russian Myths, by Kevin M.F. Platt

Abstract

Kevin Platt writes of the varied histories of the two foundational figures of Russian history—Tsar Ivan IV and Emperor Peter I. This is not a traditional retelling of the manner in which the myths of the two rulers grew. Instead, Platt uses a history of their mythologies to ask ‘Why did Imperial Russian and then Soviet political culture adopt despotic rulers, responsible for extraordinary violence, as heroic figures and avatars of social identity?’ (p. 2). Through analysis of depictions of the two leaders by historians, writers, artists, and cinematographers, he finds a deep connection between terror and greatness in Russian culture and politics that has informed Russian collective identity. Platt begins in the early nineteenth century when Peter the Great was revered by Russia’s cultural elite and the court, and served as a foundation for the creation of a collective Russian identity. Peter’s accomplishments during this time were lauded by the historian Sergei Uvarov and other writers who justified his violence as necessary for pulling Russia into the modern age. Ivan IV, in contrast, was largely ignored until the publication of Russia’s first published national history, Nikolai Karamzin’s History of the Russian State. Platt shows how Karamzin scandalously presented Ivan as a great and virtuous ruler in his youth who fell into bloody violence and immoral despotism as he matured. In this way, Ivan represented the exact opposite of Peter—as an example of how not to reign—and emphasised the collective trauma of his violence. For Aleksandr Pushkin and the Slavophiles, Peter the Great was a more complicated figure who exhibited both greatness and the potential for bloodshed and despotism like Ivan the Terrible. The Westernisers rehabilitated Ivan IV as a visionary who prepared Russia for Peter the Great to transform.